


Floating

by ohsansa



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 22:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20161303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohsansa/pseuds/ohsansa
Summary: The summer after her sixteenth birthday, Kaleb notices Lizzie closing in on herself and growing distant from her friends and family.





	Floating

Lizzie Saltzman wasn’t a subtle girl. Everyone knew that. In the weeks that had passed since summer break started, Kaleb had noticed this slight shift in the blonde witch’s behavior, how she had become closed off, quiet, and even her manic destructive moods had seemed to have ceased. Josie was visiting Penelope in Belgium, and Hope was gone with her aunt. And Rick was, well… He was Rick. He knew something was up with Lizzie, but Kaleb suspected that he was just relieved that she’d stopped destroying the kitchen whenever she was upset. He was sure that Rick was a great dad, but Kaleb had increasingly grown worried. 

In the beginning, he’d tried not to bother. He saw Lizzie sitting alone during meals and didn’t pay much attention. But it was unlike Lizzie to enter a room without greeting everyone, especially when Hope and Josie were gone and the spotlight was hers. The summer crawled and felt like it came to a near-stop, with the heat so boiling that any students who stayed for the holiday kept themselves all cramped inside. Except for Lizzie, Kaleb noticed, who wandered into the woods once a day to be alone. Lizzie Saltzman, who hated even the thought of being sweaty.

Kaleb had known Lizzie for years. And he knew that if she kept bottling up whatever she was going through, the explosion was going to be worse than any explosion she’d yet had. He’d seen this behavior in MG, closing off from people as if afraid to hurt them. MG wouldn’t even be in the same room as Landon anymore. But while he was gone for the summer, on vacation somewhere in the Carribean. He probably needed it, Kaleb thought, after everything with his mother went down.

It was a particularly cloudy day, probably one of the first since July had rolled around, when Kaleb noticed Lizzie missing from breakfast. He’d not approached her, but he’d been keeping tabs on her, asking Pedro to keep her company and trying to keep up with what she was doing. He’d asked around, claiming that MG was looking for her (because he had a reputation to keep up), and none of the witches had seen her that morning. 

Leaving the Salvatore School, Kaleb found himself in the same woods that he’d often seen Lizzie escaping to over the past month. And he found her rather easily, curled up next to the lake. Her feet were dipped into the water, and she turned her head to look at him when she heard him approach. Kaleb was more than capable of making himself as silent as possible, but he didn’t want to startle her. It wasn’t wise to startle a witch with a tendency to pop off, especially when she hadn’t in a while.

“Is dad looking for me?” she asked first, turning her attention back to the lake.

Kaleb shook his head, lowering himself onto the ground beside her. He removed his shoes, letting his legs hang into the water beside her. “No, I didn’t see you at breakfast. Wondered where you went to,” he replied nonchalantly. Kaleb was good at pretending he didn’t care about things, but even he couldn’t keep the concern from his voice.

The blonde witch glanced up at him, confusion and misunderstanding etched into her pretty face. “Why? We don’t hang out or anything,” she answered bluntly.

It brought a smile to Kaleb’s lips. It was comforting to know that despite the dark cloud over her head lately, she was still her same self. “If I’m being honest, Lizzie…” he started, looking down at the water. She’d cast some sort of spell to make the water colder, and Kaleb felt immense relief from the sun bearing down through the clouds. Even with the cloudy weather, it was still too hot. He glanced up at her again. “I’ve been worried about you,” he finished, lifting his shoulders in a shrug.

Again, there was no mistaking the look of confusion that crossed her features. “Me? Why?” she asked him, her brows furrowing together.

Kaleb shrugged for a second time. “You’ve been acting different, and I don’t think it’s just because Josie’s gone,” he replied. He leaned down a little to get a better look at her face.

Biting down on her bottom lip, Lizzie reached down to dip her fingers into the water. Kaleb was safe to tell, and she didn’t see the harm in telling him about what had been on her mind ever since Josie had left for Belgium. Her blue eyes were wide when they turned back to him. “Have you heard about the merge?” she asked him, her voice barely above a whisper.

And Kaleb sat there for more than an hour, listening as Lizzie released everything she’d been holding inside for weeks. Her worries about the merge, about losing Josie, and only being seventeen years old and not being ready to die yet. She unleashed her concerns on him, washing over him like waves, and Kaleb patiently listened to everything she had to say. She seemed to practically melt, as if she had been holding off on feeling  _ anything  _ for the past few weeks, and finally being able to.

He was silent for a while when Lizzie finished speaking, and they sat in shared comfortable silence for a few minutes until he finally spoke. “You know,” he said, looking up at her. “You can’t shut off your emotions because you’re scared. You have family and friends and people to help you, you just have to let them.” It reminded him so heavily of the conversation he’d had with MG not too long ago, and Kaleb felt like she needed to hear this too.

Lizzie nodded, her eyes watery, but she didn’t say anything. Her hands clenched and unclenched in her lap. Standing, Kaleb suddenly tugged his shirt over his head and dropped it onto the ground, to Lizzie’s scandalized, “ _ What are you doing!?”  _ \- he let his jeans drop and then, in his boxers, he waded into the lake they’d been sitting at.

Turning to look at her, he splashed water in her direction. “Reminding you of what feeling is like,” he said. 

It didn’t take much convincing. Lizzie made him look away as she stripped down to her underwear, and she waded into the water after him.

Sometime later, when the sun had gone down and they laid on their backs by the edge of the lake, staring up at the orange and red sky, Kaleb felt Lizzie’s small and frail hand slip into his own, her fingers intertwining with his own. He knew, then, that she was going to be okay, and he was going to make sure he was here to make sure he saw that.

**Author's Note:**

> is this the only Lizzie/Kaleb fic in the tag? I couldn't find the tag for it.


End file.
